The present invention relates to a lighting apparatus in which lighting equipment, sensors and home electric appliances are connected using a network to perform linked operation, and to a lighting control system and a home electric appliance relating to the lighting apparatus.
In addition to a lighting apparatus in which on/off control is performed individual lighting loads, there exists a lighting apparatus in which a plurality of home electric appliances are connected to a network using a dedicated line to perform group control of on/off switching of and lighting adjustment of the home electric appliances. In recent years, attempt has been made to make a lighting apparatus intelligent, as described above. Particularly, in a lighting control system for a building, it is becoming possible to perform centralized control of on/off switching of and lighting adjustment of lighting equipment in the building.
On the other hand, in addition to a home lighting apparatus which performs on/off control and lighting adjustment control of individual lighting loads, there exists a lighting apparatus which performs on/off control of and lighting adjustment control of lighting equipment in combination with a sensor connected to the lighting apparatus. By doing so, energy saving can be attained by combining the lighting apparatus with the sensor. However, it is difficult to find a lighting apparatus which performs centralized control of home lighting equipment or performs intelligent control by connecting the lighting equipment to a network.
Japanese patent application laid-open publication No. Hei 10-275685 discloses a lighting apparatus in which lighting equipment is connected to a network to perform lighting control using a centralized control unit connected to the network and to perform lighting adjustment control by linking with a sensor. In this conventional example, on/off control and lighting adjustment control are performed by the main control unit through the network. Further, it is possible to perform lighting control by linking with the sensor.
Relating systems of this kind are disclosed, for example, in Japanese patent application laid-open publication No. Hei 5-89969, Japanese patent application laid-open publication No. Hei 2-66877, Japanese patent application laid-open publication No. 2000-12246 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,675,221.
According to the conventional technologies described above, it is described that usability of a user can be improved by connecting the controller, the lighting equipment and the sensor using the network to perform the lighting control through the network. However, each of the conventional technologies has a system structure mainly aiming at a system for building use to control all the lighting apparatus together, and does not take it into consideration to elaborately control the lighting apparatus aiming at home use.
In order to widely apply a network-controllable lighting apparatus to home use in the future, it is necessary to solve the following problems (a) to (g).
(a) Amenity and energy saving can be attained by connecting the system using a network.
(b) The lighting apparatus can be controlled as a user intends in liking of the user, a change of scene, a trouble in the network or the device or an action in case of an emergency.
(c) The lighting apparatus can be easily operated.
(d) An increase in the power consumption of the peripheral circuits caused by the networking can be suppressed as low as possible.
(e) The system should be made by taking it into consideration to cooperate with a wall switch dedicated to the lighting apparatus control.
(f) The system should be so flexible that the system may be constructed by additionally purchasing a network-ready home electric appliance or sensor at necessary time and by necessary amount.
(g) The home electric appliance can be easily connected to the network without additional new work not only in a newly built house but in an existing house.
The conventional technologies may materialize the item (a), but do not sufficiently take the items (b) to (e) into consideration. Particularly, the networking of the lighting apparatus provides the user with convenience, but operation of the system does not always make all the users having different liking comfortable and sometimes makes the users uncomfortable. Further, in case of an emergency, the lighting apparatus must be turned on according to the user""s intention at once different from the other home electric appliances. This is because life of the user will be jeopardized unless the lighting equipment is turned on.
On the other hand, the items (f) and (g) are already proposed in the Standardization Committee of Home Network. In order to introducing the system to an existing house, use of lighting wiring or wireless has been discussed.
An object of the present invention is to materialize at least one of the above items (b) to (e).
Namely, an object of the present invention is to realize at least one of the above items, which are (b) the lighting apparatus can be controlled as a user intends in liking of the user, a change of scene, a trouble in the network or the device or an action in case of an emergency, (c) the lighting apparatus can be easily operated, (d) an increase in the power consumption of the peripheral circuits caused by the networking can be suppressed as low as possible, and (e) the system should be made by taking it into consideration to cooperate with a wall switch dedicated to the lighting apparatus control.
In order to solve the above problems, the present invention is a lighting apparatus connected to a network and controlling a lighting load corresponding to information from the network, which comprises an automatic mode for controlling the lighting load corresponding to the information from the network, a manual mode for controlling the lighting load independently of the information from the network, and a switching means for switching between the automatic mode and the manual mode.
Further, the lighting apparatus is capable of communicating state information inside the lighting apparatus to said network.
Furthermore, the lighting apparatus comprises a memory means for storing a signal from the network.